TYLER KEITH AND THE APOSTLES

Tyler Keith and the Apostles - Hell to Pay album was released on March 3, 2023. Hell to Pay is Tyler’s 14th album. Here is what Tyler has to say about Hell to Pay

“Hell To Pay is the latest album from Tyler Keith and the Apostles. It was recorded in two days at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi.

Many of the songs on the album came out of the weirdness and lonely times of a world-wide pandemic. By the time we were able to get together as a band to make the album we'd only played two shows in two years. Songs like "Castaway," "Hell To Pay," "Coming Apart" and "Nothing Left" capture something of the frustration and bewilderment that we felt. The record has no guitar overdubs or extra stuff save for an organ or piano here and there. One notable exception is the duet with Laurie Stirratt (Blue Mountain, Teardrop City) on "Nothing Left." Sometimes you may say your prayers like you used to. What could it hurt?

Ages ago, I recorded an album, The Devil's Hit List, with my old band the Preacher's Kids. The original recordings burned up in the fire at Easley McCain Studio in Memphis. I'd really loved a particular take of the song "Ghost Writer" that survived on a scratch CD so I used it back then. It sounded like it had been through a fire. Not in a good way. Lots of metallic digital hiss. We decided to bring it back to life on this record. To redeem it. Resurrection is a theme here. And waiting for the future to come. Being ready for it. Biding our time. Thus the final track on the record, "Future Fix." If you missed your train it's coming back around the bend. Maybe not too many more times, though.”

reviews

The sound of this album, Hell to Pay, is like slicing a paring knife through bone marrow. We get the edge from a cut and density of a southern rock sound. It feels gustatorily familiar and clean yet…raw. Almost a year after its release, I’m still chewing on it, though is anything but gristle and doesn’t need any big critique from me other than a sincere appreciation for the album’s honesty. - Silicone & Vinyl Records | READ MORE

There’s some sort of untutored genius laying at the heart of Tyler Keith’s music, and it’s only been honed over time. Hell To Pay will cure all that ails you. Just don’t be surprised if you find your lip curling and more swagger entering your walk as you listen, and you find yourself with the insatiable urge to hurl a beer bottle against the nearest wall. - Tim stegall | read more

To explain the range of Tyler Keith, I’m going to say at times he can remind you of the late Stiv Bators combined with the also late Townes Van Zandt. So, if you like your Americana that at times bleeds blues and punkish rock with great lyrics, Hell To Pay is for you. Recorded in just two days, you can hear the urgency in the songs, and your toes never stop tapping during both sides of this album. - Press Times | READ MORE

I think the last time I reviewed a Tyler Keith record I mentioned he sounded a little like Mick Farren, but on “Castaway”—opening track on Hell to Pay—the resemblance is uncanny. I’m not accusing Keith of stealing anything or copying someone else’s style. I’m accusing him of sounding really fucking good. And he has his own style—rootsy, smart, funny, intuitive. He and The Apostles are fiery rockers; the songs sweat and breathe and fuck around and tell the truth (see “Servant Class”). The guitar work is particularly good, the production is both clear and rough, and the violin on “Kill My Time” is striking and beautiful. Hell To Pay comes off as an album of complicated lives and good/bad times. In other words, this is the real shit. - RAZORCAKE | READ MORE

That this LP was cut in a mere two days is key to its immediacy. Imagine Iggy’s Stooges hanging out with Alex Chilton and his pals during the sessions that yielded Bach’s Bottom; that gives you a hint as to the character of this raw, rough and ready slab of rock. Unvarnished and possessing all of the spirit that makes rock ‘n’ roll the vital art form that it (at its best) can be, this rocks, and hard. From the initial sonic blast of “Cast Away,” the record grabs metaphorical hold of the listener, and it never once lets go. -Musoscribe | READ MORE

Keith has been known to rock Memphis clubs for over 20 years now, and The Last Drag, his previous album, also reveled in guitar crunch. Yet this time around, the riffs are a little grittier, and one might say a bit more “seventies.” As opposed to the neo-60s rock of the last outing, this is neo-70s rock that borders, at times, on Stooges territory. Yet unlike that seminal group, it’s not drenched in guitar solos. It’s all about the riff. - Memphis Flyer | READ MORE

The latest full album release from Tyler Keith & The Apostles comes through as a classic and garage rock-inspired banger with tons of grit and character that let the artist really push the envelope enough to create an impact that feels familiar but still refreshing at the same time.

The Hell to Pay album is packed with swagger and attitude along with this thriving energy that gives everything an almost live performance feel as if the players are feeding off of each other the entire time. - Buzzslayers | READ MORE

There’s some sort of untutored genius laying at the heart of Tyler Keith’s music, and it’s only been honed over time. Hell To Pay will cure all that ails you. Just don’t be surprised if you find your lip curling and more swagger entering your walk as you listen, and you find yourself with the insatiable urge to hurl a beer bottle against the nearest wall. -tim “napalm” stegall | read more

Tyler Keith’s seldom if ever disappointed me, going back to the earliest days of his I know, when he co-led The Neckbones, a Southern-fried Voidoids in more than a few ways. Keith wrestles with sin and salvation as regularly but more explicitly than Jerry Lee, he’s a reminder to listeners that much of the best rock and roll–and that’s what Hell to Pay is, even if a violin sneaks in–has come from the working class, and he’s got a way of conjuring desperation that always feels like the United States to me. His first new record in awhile, Hell to Pay, on Black and Wyatt Records, shows his commitment to those values has waned not a whit, and that his musical attack coheres with his excellent dark ‘n’ pulpy ‘n’ sweaty Southern noir novel The Mark of Cain, published last year. I highly recommend both vinyl and book, the latter his first. - Living to Listen | READ

 Tyler Keith

Tyler Keith was born in the panhandle of Florida. After High School he moved to Mississippi to study writing at Ole Miss with Barry Hannah. Instead of graduating from college he joined some bands, most notably the Neckbones, (SOULS ON FIRE, THE LIGHTS ARE GETTING DIM, Fat Possum) making four albums with that group and touring the States and Europe extensively. In the first decade of the 2000s he fronted the band Tyler Keith and the Preacher’s Kids making three records, ROMEO HOOD, WILD EMOTIONS, and THE DEVIL’S HITLIST.

In the last decade Tyler Keith made two records with Tyler Keith and the Apostles, BLACK HIGHWAY, and DO IT FOR JOHNNY. During this time he also made a biker musical called THE OUTLAW BIKER. Keith made a solo acoustic record called ALIAS, KID TWIST, and toured as a solo act for this album. In the second half of the last decade he formed a group, Teardrop City, with Laurie Stirratt (Blue Mountain), George Sheldon (Kenny Brown Band, Blue Mountain), and Wallace Lester (Rev John Wilkins, Como Mammas), and released an album called, IT’S LATER THAN YOU THINK.

The Last Drag is a solo project, rock n roll album made with Bronson Tew on drums, recording, engineering, and other things, and a few other friends, recorded at Dial Back Studios in Waster Valley Mississippi. The recording began when a band cancelled at the last minute and he jumped in and recorded for the weekend. The rest of the sessions were recorded when the studio had downtime or no-shows. The result was a rollicking ten-song platter called, THE LAST DRAG, complete with a few horns and strings, and one- handed piano.

articles + reviews

Do you like rock ‘n’ roll? I mean the sweaty, greasy, sloppy, noisy stuff, the kind of music that gets your heart pumping and makes you want to get involved somehow – air guitar, head-nodding, first pumping – to more fully experience it? Then I’d very much like to direct your attention to The Last Drag, the new album from Memphis rocker Tyler Keith.

Keith writes all ten of the tunes on this LP, and he plays multiple instruments: guitar, bass, organ – and does all of the lead vocal work. He’s joined throughout by drummer/bassist Bronson Tew, and a list of guest artists helping out includes the estimable Jimbo Mathus. His name alone offers enough cred to make it a must-hear, and while it’s true that The Last Drag sports a musical sensibility that’s very much in line with that of Mathus, Keith has his own sound. - musoscribe | read

Like the bands he names, Keith's music is raw and rocking. It takes a certain touch to authentically pull that off, but with his ear for perfectly dialed-in guitar tones, stomping beats, and melodies that soar over slashing chords, Keith clearly gets it. His new LP The Last Drag (Black & Wyatt) may be his finest yet. Combining all the above ingredients with maturity's hard-won lessons, these songs convey a sense of dread, destiny, and delight, perhaps best expressed in the opening track, "You Can't Go Home Again." - Memphis Flyer | READ

Colorfully explored themes of regret, loneliness, and desire as well as nods to movies, literature and, of course, rock-n-roll’s dusty past are present on the album, as they are throughout Keith’s recordings. The “rolling stone” on “Take Me Home” wants to make a “connection on my telephone,” while the swaying title track features an untrustworthy narrator who channels Jerry Lee Lewis to tell his lover he’ll won’t change for anyone but her. Meanwhile, the further adventures of Stagger Lee and Billy are explored in the delightful (and Neckbones recalling) “Down By The …” -The Big Takeover | READ

Tyler Keith, The Last Drag (Black & Wyatt) This fine label’s raison d’être is contemporary Memphis R&R, but this 10-song effort expands that focus a bit, as Keith, a veteran singer, guitarist, songwriter and more, can be described as a man of the southern USA. Born in Florida with much time spent in Mississippi, including studying literature at Ole Miss with the late author Barry Hannah, Keith also formed the Neckbones, who had some records out on Fat Possum, and next fronted The Preacher’s Kids and then The Apostles, cut a solo acoustic record, and even joined the band Teardrop City. That’s a busy dude. Plus, he put together The Outlaw Biker, a project that seems promising (unlike most biker-aligned stuff that’s far too often just blues-rock retread, stale, bloated or otherwise crummy), specifically because it’s described as a “biker musical,” two words that are rarely if ever placed in that order. I’m imagining Satan’s Sadists directed by Bob Fosse or Stanley Donen, but it’s probably nothing like that.

Another reason I’m holding The Outlaw Biker in personal interest comes right down to the high level of quality throughout The Last Drag, which Black & Wyatt calls Keith’s 13th album, though it flies forth with the energy of a confident debut. Cut with Bronson Tew on drums and aiding in various studio capacities with other friends helping out, the results definitely land in the gist of Black & Wyatt’s thing, but if you’re clueless to what that is, let me say that Keith has a sneery punkish extroversion that kinda makes me think of Richard Hell if he’d grown up below the Mason Dixon line as the raw, oft-garage-ish R&R wafts post-Nuggets fumes that’re less-and-less common these days. I’d also say that folks into Ty Segall would find The Last Drag to be a stone gas, especially “Born Again Virgin” and the shout-along highlight “Scarlett Fever.” A delightfully consistent record that’s available digitally now but with the vinyl delayed until late June-early July due to Memphis Record Pressing’s temporary Covid-19-related closure.

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